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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28982481">Weary the End Comes</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Everything4Everyone/pseuds/Everything4Everyone'>Everything4Everyone</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Five Nights at Freddy's</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Background Relationships, Body Horror, Body Modification, Corpse Michael Afton, Depressed Michael, Eggs Benedict is Michael Afton, Emotional Manipulation, Everyone Needs A Hug, Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator | Five Nights at Freddy's 6, Gen, Graphic Description of Corpses, Hurt Michael, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Major Character Injury, Manipulative Relationship, Michael Afton-Centric, Michael-centric, Protective Michael, Sad Michael, Suicidal Michael, Suicidal Thoughts, Zombification</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 09:01:57</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,729</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28982481</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Everything4Everyone/pseuds/Everything4Everyone</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the end.</p><p>Michael Afton is exhausted. After countless years and seemingly endless days, struggling to even exist, he just wants everything to end.<br/>Then he comes across an ad in the paper for a management position at Freddy's. This is his chance to end it all, to finally rid the world of his father's creations.</p><p>This fire will be the end of them.</p><p>But perhaps whatever's waiting next is even worse. After all, someone with as many crimes as Michael is surely going straight to Hell.</p><p>And as the fire burns brightly, what choice should he make? Should he continue surviving for eternity, or, should he let himself die and step into a place no being has ever been?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Charlotte "Charlie" Emily &amp; Henry Emily, Elizabeth Afton &amp; Charlotte "Charlie" Emily, Elizabeth Afton &amp; Michael Afton, Elizabeth Afton &amp; Michael Afton &amp; William Afton | Dave Miller, Elizabeth Afton &amp; William Afton | Dave Miller, Elizabeth Afton/Charlotte "Charlie" Emily, Henry Emily/Springtrap, Michael Afton &amp; Charlotte "Charlie" Emily, Michael Afton &amp; Circus Baby, Michael Afton &amp; Ennard, Michael Afton &amp; Helpy, Michael Afton &amp; Henry Emily, Michael Afton &amp; Lefty, Michael Afton &amp; Molten Freddy, Michael Afton &amp; Springtrap, Michael Afton &amp; William Afton | Dave Miller, William Afton | Dave Miller &amp; Henry Emily, William Afton | Dave Miller/Henry Emily</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>59</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Weary the End Comes</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Staring blankly at the wall, Michael shifted slightly as he heard the mailman throw down the newspaper with his usual amount of carelessness, the paper hitting the mat with a dull thud and the sound of paper fluttering. He didn’t really care at all, but there might be a hint in there as to what he had to do next.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There had to be </span>
  <em>
    <span>something,</span>
  </em>
  <span> after all. Why else would he still be here, long after he rightfully should have died?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sighing lightly, allowing the tiny amount of breath he’d gathered to slip out of his mouth, Michael heaved himself off the couch, his legs shaking unstably below him as he shambled over toward the door. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Walking had gotten a lot harder over the decades since he’d died, his legs rotting beneath him and protesting any weight put upon them. He’d long ago learned that it didn’t matter whether he used them or not though; they’d still rot at the same rate whether he was walking or not.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Still, he reached the door within a minute and opened it just long enough to reach one hand out and grab the newspaper. He was wearing gloves, of course, and long sleeves, but he really didn’t want anyone to see him. He could pass off his appearance as being a rare skin condition, but anyone skilled in rotten bodies would be able to tell in seconds that he was rotting. To his knowledge, most people’s bodies didn’t rot while they were still alive. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then again, he wasn’t exactly an expert on the composition and rotting of human bodies. The only thing he had to go off was his own state, and even that wasn’t really interesting. It worked, and that was really all he cared about. He could still do what he had to do, whatever that was, and complete the tasks he was given. He had to believe that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Settling back on the couch, ignoring the way his flesh gave in beneath him, Michael opened the newspaper, holding it as close to his face as he could as he squinted at the tiny print. He didn’t know exactly what had happened while Ennard had been using him as a skin suit, but he did know that his eyes seemingly no longer existed, simply being black holes with white dots shining from some mysterious place in his head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Something had really messed up his vision while Ennard had control of him, probably having something to do with only being able to see out of the white dots from the inside of his head. He didn’t even know if he even still had eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His vision was very blurry, as if he needed glasses but didn’t have them, and the sides of his vision were black, almost like he was on the edge of passing out. There was one tiny dot in the middle of his vision where he saw with absolute clarity, even better than he’d seen before he’d died, but everything else was blurry and fuzzy, colors blurred together and lines mixed into their surroundings, black looming at the edges of his vision.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It had gotten steadily worse over the first decade or so, but right when Michael was beginning to fear he would go completely blind, it had stopped, leaving him with black edges and blurry lines and messy colors and that one spot of complete clarity. Bad enough he couldn’t really see anything unless it was right against his face, but good enough he could still do his job. Then again, he didn’t really have a choice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He knew there were glasses that could fix his vision, but he didn’t have the money to afford them and he couldn’t let anyone see what had happened to him. He knew he wouldn’t be allowed to get any more jobs or finish his business. He’d probably be locked up in a lab or something, trapped there as people experimented on him and tried to find out how he worked. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eternal life was quite a good motivator for most people. It was what had motivated his father to kill and kill and kill again, after all. It was why this entire tragedy had happened, why there was string after string of terrible incidents and death after death of the poor fools who only wanted to get a quick buck and the stupid people who’d taken dares they shouldn’t have and the brave people who just wanted to prove themselves.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Michael would be more than willing to give his eternal life up for almost anything. He’d never wanted to live forever. He’d only wanted to help people, to save his family. He’d never wanted eternal life. He’d never been his father, no matter how much they looked like each other.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And that was one of the only benefits to his rotten appearance; he now looked very little like his father, being a rotten purple corpse instead of a skinned and mangled red corpse. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Michael just wanted to complete his job. He wanted to free the souls, to save his family, to finally rid the world of all last remnants of the evil that his father had spread.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ennard was still out there, after all. The Marionette had gone missing and hadn’t been destroyed and consequently freed with the others. His father’s shell had never been found, and hopefully that was because he’d burned to nothing more than ashes in the fires of Fazbear’s Fright. New animatronics were still being built. His father’s legacy was still carrying on.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That must be the reason he was still alive. It had to be the reason he was still here. He had to end his father’s twisted legacy once and for all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Otherwise, there would have been no reason for him to have survived all these long long decades. He should have died hundreds of times over. Every animatronic that had ever got him, the many years spent homeless, the lack of any essential organs, the fires… since he hadn’t been able to die, there had to be something left for him to do, one more thing he had to do before he was finally allowed to rest. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eyes scanning over the tiny print, Michael paused at one entry, sighing in something that was not quite resignation and not quite relief. It was an ad for a management position at a Freddy’s location. Apparently several new ones were going to pop up, each with their own ‘unique’ style.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He hoped this was it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Michael slowly reached over to the side of the couch and grabbed his flip phone off of the end table. It took quite a bit of effort to put the numbers in, his dead hands shaky on the tiny buttons, but he managed it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Raising the phone to his ear, Michael drew in breath and let it out, idly wondering where it went since he had no lungs. His undead form was still strange to him, even after the long decades that had passed since his death, and he honestly didn’t know how it worked very well.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He hoped this went well. If he didn’t get hired he’d have to make another fake personality, another false name, another fake everything. He just wanted to end this tragedy; was that too much to ask? Couldn’t he just end this vicious cycle of death and destruction?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The phone rang once, twice, three times, then stopped. Michael waited with bated breath as whoever was on the other side picked it up. This was his chance… he had to get this job.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hello?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The voice sounded very familiar, familiar like his father’s eyes and his sister’s laugh and his brother’s small hands. He knew this man, he knew he did, but he couldn’t remember who it was.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It had to be someone from his childhood; that would be the only thing that could invoke feelings like this. It was someone he was very close to, someone he loved, but he couldn’t remember who.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Regardless of who it was, Michael spoke into the phone, smiling the best he can. “Hell-o. I am call-ing abo-ut the man-age-ment pos-i-tion for Fred-dy’s. Is it still o-pen?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The man on the other side of the phone hesitated for a moment. “Yes, the position is still open. Can I have your name, please?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Michael hesitated. He’d gone by so many fake names; it would be easy to choose one now, but… “M-Mich-ael.” He’d think up a last name later.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The man hesitated again, longer this time, before speaking. “Okay. I’ve got the perfect location for you. You’ll be working in the back almost full time, and if you don’t want to you’ll never have to come into contact with other people. You'll be underground, so if that’s a problem for you, please let me know and I’ll change your location. You’ll be in charge of pretty much everything, and since you'll be there both during the day and the night, you can pop in any time to watch the kids and make sure everything’s running smoothly. You’ll find your uniform at your desk, but don’t feel any need to stick with the dress code unless you’re gonna be visiting the kids. The uniform’s probably gonna be a bit big on you, but unless it becomes a real problem, there’s not really much we can do about it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I’ll call you on your first day to help guide you through all the steps, okay? Don’t worry about not knowing anything; I’ll be there to help. It might be a bit challenging at first, and I know the prospect is almost certainly daunting, but I know you can do it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Okay, then, I’ll talk to you on Monday. See you later, Michael.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Michael put the phone down, mind spinning. What… what had just happened? He’d been hired on the spot, everything had already been set up… that had been weird enough, but Michael wasn’t stupid. The man… whoever that had been, he knew what had happened to Michael. More than that, he knew what size clothes he wore, or at least had a close enough estimate to know that the uniform would be too big. That meant that he probably knew about… about Ennard. About Circus Baby, about the Scooper… about what had happened to him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Michael knew who that was, he was sure of it. He’d met him before… they’d been close. But he couldn’t remember who it was, and the man hadn’t left a name… who was it then? Someone close to him, probably from the past… but who? He sounded relatively young, but also older than Michael… he supposed it could have been one of his friends, but he didn’t think so. Their voices were forever engraved in his memory as a part of the incident… the one that had made him realize what he was becoming. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Michael… Michael had never been a good person, and he understood that. He hadn’t been a good person as a child, or as a teen, or even as an ‘adult’. He’d hurt his brother and hadn’t cared about his sister and had loved his father more than anyone else, apart from…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d loved one other person when he was young, hadn’t he, his father’s best friend. He’d been a good man, with a good heart. His name had been…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Henry. This was Henry, and Michael knew with a sudden, painful certainty that the man he had just talked to was the same gentle-hearted man who had worked with his father, the one who Michael had never seen again after the devastating losses they’d taken.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The last time he’d seen him had been a couple of months after Chris’s funeral, dark bags under his eyes, skin pale, and hair messy. He’d been a mess, but he’d managed to compose himself enough to go shopping, basket looking much emptier than usual and eyes hollow. Michael had been there too, looking for any excuse he could find to get away from ‘home’, and they’d exchanged a few words before moving on.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d never seen Henry again. His father had gone missing soon afterwards, leaving him everything, and sent him a request-order- to go to Circus Baby’s Entertainment and Rental Service and free his sister.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Michael had been Scooped there, but he had managed to free his sister… well, partially, at least. She was still trapped in Circus Baby, but she wasn’t locked away underground now, at the very least... she’d been freed from one prison, but she was still trapped in another one, one that Michael still hadn’t managed to free her from. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But in the few months between his father’s disappearance and Michael’s… half death? He wasn’t quite sure what to call it-he hadn’t seen Henry at all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So, what was he doing here? Henry… well, he’d been devastated when Fredbear’s had been closed, and he’d… well, Michael hadn’t been sure what he’d been expecting, but he’d never even guessed that Henry would open up </span>
  <em>
    <span>another</span>
  </em>
  <span> place with animatronics… if he’d been in Henry’s place, he’d have wanted nothing more than to leave all that in the past.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yet… there was something… was Henry working toward the same goal he was? To free all the animatronics… maybe… did he know that his daughter was in one of them?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It had taken Michael a while to realize that souls could possess animatronics, but it hadn’t taken long after that to connect the souls of the children who’d died with the animatronics. Of course, Charlie had been one of them, and he’d managed to connect her to the Marionette pretty quickly. Of course, Marionette was a lot… angrier, than she’d ever been, but you could still feel Charlie’s personality shining through.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe Henry could feel that, too. Maybe he could also feel his daughter, her soul so bright even surrounded by confusion and anger, leading the other children through the tangled web of lies.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He didn’t blame them for what they’d done. How could he? Despite their strength and maturity, they were all still children. They didn’t know right from wrong, and probably never would now, and dying… well, Michael had never died, but being Scooped had to be somewhat close to that, seeing as it killed his body pretty thoroughly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dying was a confusing mess, and souls were intricately complicated. It had taken Michael almost two days to fully understand what had happened to him, and another three to figure out all the little details. Souls, especially ones that his father had touched, were messy and complicated, and even Michael didn’t understand quite how they worked. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Michael sighed tiredly. There was no point in worrying. Either things would reveal themselves in time or they wouldn’t. It didn’t really matter either way, not truly, but Michael wanted to make sure his father’s legacy died with him. And the more he understood and learned, the more he realized just how wide this spread, how deep it went, the more he knew he needed to do. Destroying the animatronics, freeing their souls, putting their victims to rest, shutting all the buildings down or destroying them, making sure no new animatronics were made that could potentially be dangerous, hunting down and destroying the springlock suits, destroying the Scooper, making sure there were no traces of remnant left behind, hunting down the remaining animatronics…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>God, he was tired. He’d spent years after years, full decades over and over, hunting down and destroying his father’s legacy, burning his animatronics and disposing of remnant, making the buildings unusable, stripping the world of his creations.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As far as he knew, much of it had been eradicated. The remnant was gone, put where no man would ever find it. Almost all of the animatronics had been destroyed, dismantled and burned until there was nothing left, their souls freed and set to rest, finally letting go of their anger and vengeance. The buildings had been ruined, burned and attacked and destroyed until not a single one remained. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d done so much… and now it was almost over. There were very few animatronics left, and only one building. An indeterminable number of souls, seeing as how one animatronic could carry multiple souls. There was no remnant left outside of the animatronics, no other buildings that had been used, no other suits or animatronics or even possessed plushies remaining in existence. No more deaths, no more tragedies, no more people going missing or terrible mistakes. The entire chain had closed down-for good.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was very little left for him to do. The animatronics being made now were safer, and even though he disapproved they were better than the alternative. All that he had left to do was destroy the few remaining animatronics, dispose of any remnant, make sure their souls were freed and put to rest, burn the building to the ground…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then he could rest. He could finally let go, knowing that the world was safe from his father, He could let go…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But there was still a lot he had to do beforehand. And really, he didn’t have any right to complain.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was his own fault he’d got into this mess, his own actions that had started the disturbing chain of events, his own stupid willpower and determination that had kept him alive.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Until every last trace of his father and his father’s creation had gone from this planet, Michael would be unable to rest. Until every last soul was put to rest, every last scrap of remnant destroyed, every last animatronic annihilated, he would remain. No matter what he did or tried, no matter what he said or thought, no matter what he wanted or how much he wished for death, he would remain.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Michael had given up on living long before getting Scooped. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>In the end, it was probably better that it had happened. There was no way he’d have survived this long without being forced to, and many times the promise of rest was all that had kept him going, all that had gotten him to stumble brokenly inside a building and burn it to the ground.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d tried burning himself alongside them. Hoped that since it worked on remnant, worked on the souls, it would work on him too. He’d laid there in the ruins of the building in agony for over a week, feeling embers smoulder inside of him and fire lick at his insides. As it turned out, embers could take a very long time to completely burn out, especially when there was stil fuel and licks of flame. That had been one of the worst weeks of his life, and only the realization that it wouldn’t end unless he did something about it managed to end it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d been forced to reach through the wide tear in his stomach and scrape out burning embers and flaming chunks of wood with his bare hands, sobbing in pain and feeling the pain multiply, hands burning as he scooped his insides out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It had taken him hours to get most of it out, almost two full days to escape afterwards. He’d had to scrape out as much ash and wood and embers as he could, burning both his hands and his hollow insides, feeling chunks of rotten flesh peel off in his hands, fingers tearing grooves into him. And even as he took it out, more would rain from the ceiling every now and then, reversing his progress and causing the pain to double.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Afterwards, he’d stumbled hazily from the building, leaving a burning trail behind him. It had taken hours just to walk from where he had been to the outside of the building, and he was too weak afterwards to do anything other than make it to the park and crash on a bench. He’d stayed there for two weeks, slowly recovering and digging more out of him, feeling a pain more than he’d ever felt before.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Throughout the entire ordeal, though he sobbed and howled and screamed, not a single tear ever fell from his eyes. The last time he’d cried, honestly cried, had been the day he’d woken up in his own body after Ennard had left, and he’d cried until he couldn’t cry anymore.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d thought the Scooper would have killed him… he would have been happy to die.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Michael shook his head, trying to clear away the painful memories sticking to his mind, the taste of ashes on his tongue, the phantom pain in his hollow chest. He curled up a bit on the couch, feeling the lumps move uncomfortably beneath him, and wished he had been just a bit stronger. He wished he had been strong enough to never hurt his family, set his father on the spiral of destruction… </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wished he was strong enough to let himself die all those years ago.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He finally closed his eyes, allowing the blurry world to fade away, retreating into his mind. His body felt far too heavy and disconnected from him, resting on the couch in a manner that had frightened him the first time he’d felt it but was now more normal than breathing, especially since breathing was now optional.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He didn’t even have lungs anymore, so breathing was more of an instinctive thing than anything actually needed for survival. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It had also taken him a very long time to get used to the new way of breathing, the fact he no longer had a heartbeat, that eating no longer felt good… </span>
</p><p>
  <span>After around two years, he had managed to finally get used to the new way his body worked, but it still disturbed him to think of it. He still couldn’t look at himself apart from brief glances, seeing deformed purple flesh. He disgusted himself, hated himself. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>By now, he’d spent only a small fraction of his life as a regular human, almost the entire thing now corrupted by rotten purple and a long, horrible struggle to continue existing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He drifted off again, feeling his corpse settle heavier into the couch, and let himself go. He couldn’t sleep, but… this was as close as he could get.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So he let himself drift into the fake sleep, full of a nervous anxiousness and a relieved peace at the thought that soon, he would be gone. The nightmare would end.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>...and he’d never felt happier... </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
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